Big Woods forest, a deciduous forest environment, covers most of the northwestern half of Rice County.  Settlers took note of this forest because, unlike the scrubby oak and aspen woodlands elsewhere in Minnesota, the Big Woods was a distinguishable and dense forest land largely lacking herbaceous floor growth.  According to Grimm, the characteristic trees of the Big Woods at the time of European settlement in southern Minnesota were American elm (Ulmus americana), which comprised 27% of the forest, followed by basswood (Tilia americana), sugar maple (Acer saccharum), and hop hornbeam (Ostrya virginiana), which comprised 14%, 12%, and 7% of the Big Woods, respectively (1983).

Much of our knowledge concerning the original composition of the Big Woods comes from survey records and notes from the original public land survey (PLS), which started in Minnesota in 1847.  Public land survey data from this time period is useful in making presettlement vegetation maps, reconstructing characteristics of past forests, and determining the density and distribution of different biomes.  Surveyor notes on Bearing trees, or the witness trees that the surveyors marked to aid in the relocation of a survey corners, were especially useful to ecologists studying the composition of the Big Woods and surrounding savannas before the invasion of European settlers in the mid 1800's (Almendinger 1996). The bearing tree record from survey notes was used to reconstruct the Bearing tree map layer below. Though subject to some error, this map layer clearly shows the prairie forest border and supports maple species as the dominant tree of the Big Woods in the Rice County area..

Many of Minnesota's early settlers, who originated originated from forested areas in Europe, sought homesteads in the forest  when they came to the prairies.  These settlers believed that land that could not grow trees, such as prairie land, could not grow agricultural crops and support a family.  They built their homesteads the Big Woods, chopping down the trees to make room for agricultural fields and pastures. By the middle of the 1800s, however, these early settlers finally learned that tallgrass prairie soil was richer and could be broken with hard work.  After this discovery, the tallgrass prairies in Rice County were quickly settled and plowed under. Today, nearly all of the Big Woods has been cleared for agriculture and other uses (Tester 1995).